“When did you last eat anything?” I ask.
She shrugs.
“Mum?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Then let’s get Peggy and find some food.”
An hour later Kit’s taken us all out to a small restaurant with a patio that’s open to the baking late-afternoon sun. A long line of commuters and local residents stands waiting for their turn to be served for takeout, but Peggy has managed to grab us a table, and within minutes, a waiter deposits our food in front of us. We are each given a large thali platter. Arranged upon it are lots of small bowls filled with different vegetarian curries—smoky lentils, chopped eggplant, paneer cheese, and spiced cauliflower. On the side are dishes of rice, pale green coconut chutney, and paratha bread, hot out of the oven and oozing with butter.
“This looks divine,” Peggy says, surveying her plate.
“I’ve been coming to this place since the nineties,” Kit says. She’s been to India tons of times, for the schools that she founded, but also from years ago, when she was searching for enlightenment but mainly found dodgy gurus. I’m super hungry. Peggy watches with a small smile as I tuck into my meal. I glance up at her, questioningly.
“How does this fit with your diet sheet, Jessie?”
Li’s nutritionist provides Caitlin, Hala, and me with an individual eating plan that gives us perfectly measured amounts of each food group, tailored to our specific body shape, blood types, metabolism, and general food tolerances. It’s all wrapped up in a sexy app that Li has had coded in-house that combines data on our sleep, movement, heart rate, and body temperature, all of which is taken from a regular tracking ring. It’s all very impressive and we’re all super fit, but sometimes you just need that burrito, or a bag of fish and chips. Or rice and curry.
“I don’t think there’s anything here that’s off-limits,” I say.
My brazen lie makes Kit smile at least, and even though she only nibbles at her plate, the food seems to help restore my mother a little too. Meanwhile, I ask Peggy if there’s any news on Jake Graham.
“On the face of it, he still doesn’t have enough for us to panic about. But he’s persistent,” Peggy sighs. “He called me and left a message, just yesterday.”
“Did he say what he wants?” I ask.
“No.”
“But it was right after he came to see me,” says Kit. She falls silent, brooding.
“Amber’s still working on it,” Peggy says, trying to be upbeat. “There’s no point tying ourselves in knots. We all have enough on our plates right now.”
I nod. Just as I contemplate starting in on Kit’s leftovers, a new message from Amber comes into my earpiece. I’ve been wearing the comms unit since after our last conversation, to make sure I don’t miss anything.
“Is it Hassan?” I ask.
“Yes, I’ve found him,” she replies. “His son just checked in on social to say he’s helping his father by working after school. It appears that Hassan owns a small car repair place over in the Santacruz area of the city.”
“So, he’s there now?”
“Right now. I’ve sent details to all of you. Caitlin’s going to stay and keep an eye on the girls at the hotel, but Hala will meet you there.”
I arrive at the car repair shop by auto-rickshaw. Rickshaws are just that bit narrower and more nimble than a taxi, and I don’t want to risk losing our target by being snared in traffic jams. On the way over, I imagine how it would go if I shared the information we just gained on Hassan and his whereabouts with the police, with Riya. The problem is, even if the police manage to get to him, whatever they learn would never be passed back to us. And Hassan is most likely a cog in a big Family First wheel. And it is Family First that we really want to cripple. Delivering the man who may have planted the bomb and giving him a big, splashy trial would be a huge win for the police in Mumbai—but the truth is that people like Hassan are the hired hands who execute the strategy. We need to find out who’s pulling the strings.
The garage is wide and deep, with two cars cranked up so that mechanics can work beneath them. Several other cars are scattered around, with their hoods open. Hala joins me outside the place. She and Caitlin hired motorbikes and she’s managed to arrive ten minutes ahead of me, giving her time to spot and watch Hassan.
“He’s the one in the banana shirt and shades,” she says. Indeed, Hassan is in oversized sunglasses and a short-sleeved yellow shirt with green bananas printed all over it. It’s a depressingly memorable style choice. Currently, Hassan seems like he’s on a break. He lounges against the back wall of the garage, chugging back a bottle of orange soda, and talking to a young boy in overalls, possibly his son. After a minute, the boy slides beneath one of the cars to work on it, and Hassan leans down to give him some advice. Then he finishes his soda and saunters out toward the front, toward us, where he stretches and takes in the street, which is jam-packed with cars inching slowly along.
Hala and I step back behind a stall selling kulfi ice cream, keeping out of Hassan’s eyeline. Behind us, a group of men play cards for thin stacks of rupee notes. Meanwhile, our mark pockets his sunglasses and lights up a cigarette, leaning against the wall to enjoy his smoke.
“Where are we going to talk to him?” Hala asks.
“Right there. He won’t want a drama in front of his kid. Anyway, what else are we going to do? Ask him to dinner?”
“What if he runs?” she asks.
“Two of us, one of him,” I reply.
“Weapon?” she asks.
“Not seeing anything on him, are you?”
She peers at Hassan one more time and agrees.
“I’ll go talk to him, you
